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=== Talking Points ===
Dr. D has known Silentpadna on and off the field for close to twenty years, which in Internet terms is what, oh, two geological eras or so?.
He can assure you that there is no such thing as a homo sapiens with a calmer or more pleasant personality. When this man takes a megaphone, holds it two inches from your ear, and reams you out, then it is time to take radical action. Must be time to leak that I almost signed Josh Hamilton.
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The great and powerful admins behind the SSI curtain, in relation to whom Dr. D's most-comparable player is the little dog Toto, are hyper-aware of the problems. We've thankfully rated a new paradigm -- a stand-alone platform dedicated to SSI only -- beginning in 2013, so all possible resources are being brought to bear.
Yes, the programmers woke up one day a few weeks ago and found themselves in the seventh circle of AAA baseball. Those of you who are developers, realize that this isn't fixed with a wave of the magic wand. But problems should not continue for much longer.
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We need frank and candid feedback as to the SSI user experience. This applies to the last 10 days, and (as a hopefully separate! issue) applies to the last four years.
You remember that when our friend Wolfy was helping out at DOV.com, there were issues. My impression is that, over the past four years, those issues were considerably fewer. Is this view mistaken? :- )
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The admins, who are a bunch of Silentpadna types personally speaking, are hyper-apologetic over the slowdown of the past week or two. Why this should be the case isn't clear. ;- ) If they charged twice as much it would still be pretty cheap.
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Dr. D is verrrry loyal to the wizards behind the curtain. If you knew them, you would be also.
One minor note in their grand symphony of generosity over the past years: their bestowal of a satellite site on Spectator. The wizards think the world of the DOV/MC community.
That said, if there is interest in an additional Dr. D site, half subscription half public, at which would be posted more content volume than is presently streaming, let us know. This would then function as a supplementary conduit, which as we all know will be necessary when Montero, Paxton and Co. go nuts in 2013 and become Tampa West.
By the way, if you're interested in a bit of non-Mariner Dr. D whimsy, here are a few of his articles written in other genres. If you're a little light on the shtick lately, maybe that will remind you of why you didn't miss it much.
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The MC/DOV/SSI community is, I think, unique in baseball. I've never found the same fun-loving, frictionless "think tank" environment, saturated by adult idea exchange, populated by such friendly amigos coming from such varied walks of life. The pleasure is all Dr. D's.
Bring the feedback on, if you please.
Cheers,
Jeff
Wasn't meant to be a megaphone in your ear, though I admit to being a little frustrated. As usual a little context infusion from the Doc eases the misguided perception of his "silent partner" (a screen name derived from an off-hand AOL Stats board JenAnnC comment some 15 years ago, BTW). Thanks for all you do. And hurry up with the Morales POTD would ya? :-)
NOW THAT...is a HUGE victory for the good guys! Mariners deal Jason "about to be a dead man" Vargas to the Angels for Kendrys Morales. That...is friggin' AWESOME!! GO Z!
Pros:
The mood and tenor of the site you so aptly describe
The generosity of the host and the admins
The substance of the content, both by the host and the contributors
The schtik
The shouts
The general format
Cons:
Ever since Klat, frequent failure to load, slow connection, long wait times when attempting to click-move within the site, this interspersed with a few periods when it wasn't as bad. This has become more frequent in the past ten days or so, but it is not new as a phenomenon.
Can't tell from recent comments on the sidebar what threads they inhabit.
On balance, the trouble is well worth the content. Thanks for all you do.
Hello, SSI fans. On behalf of everyone at Klat I do appologize for the especially difficult time you have had with our site over the past couple weeks. A number of persistant, complexly interrelated problems very much came to a head and were extremely challenging to fix. I'm hesitant to temp fate by saying so, but I believe we are in a stable place now. As Jemanji alluded to, we are going to (carefully) take some additional steps to help SSI stand alone from from our larger network, which should allow it to perform better and insulate it against issues better. Thanks again for your patience and sticking with us through this rough patch!
PS: Happy Holidays!
Hi DaddyO, I think bringing back the article-the-comment-is-in-referrence to is a great idea and I'll get that up as soon as I feel pretty good that we're stable.
Thanks!
His observations go for me as well.
Would like to add that the constant evolution and improvement of the forum is extremely admirable, and reflects tons of thought and time invested. I appreciate that a lot.
The Mariners have finally obtained, at least for one year, a solid MLB-certified, experienced bat used to hitting in the middle of the order. Even that one year of Morales could give some of the youngsters time to grow into a replacement. This is the kind of move the Mariners have needed to make for awhile. Dare we look for an outfielder too?
i always read it as "silent panda" the first time
i suspect this is true. i keep on HOPING there are sites like this for every team, and i look for them, but i haven't really found much. so i keep on coming back here even though i'm not even a mariner fan. good people are good people
Glad you're on it.
I blamed it all on the Doc, anyway.
Anybody who remembers that Billy Williams was a hitting whiz is probably too old to be dealing with high tech stuff.
We dinosaurs still struggle with push-button phones, for goodness sake.
Interesting Morales acquisition. It indicates we may be throwing a young 'un in the rotation. Felix, Iwakuma, Beavan, Erasmo = 4. Hultzen or Paxton fills the boat? What do you think? Also, somebody just lost some AB's? Smoak? Jaso? Montero?
Cool stuff....especially because of what it may mean for a young pitcher.
moe
"The MC/DOV/SSI community is, I think, unique in baseball. I've never found the same fun-loving, frictionless "think tank" environment, saturated by adult idea exchange, populated by such friendly amigos coming from such varied walks of life. The pleasure is all Dr. D's".
No, no. .The pleasure is all mine. Can't wait to check every day and see if the Doctor has been in his office. SSI and my beloved Oklahoma Sooner OUBoards are my favorite passions. Thanks for the veritable feasts you and your readers provide.
Whether it is graphic/thumbnail, another reference point (letters/numbers for items), or sorted by thread, those of us who come back regularly need a way to see what's new on articles of interest. Another suggestion is to have the comment numbers reflect the order in which the comments are made rather than just reiterating the physical ordering on the page. That way a quick scan finds the latest comments, even if they are nested.
With apologies,
Some dinosaurs certainly survived the upheaval of a catastrophic meteor strike. Sharks, for example. You are clearly of that type of dino-species.
I, on the other hand, am of the species that curled up into a ball and whimpered at the first hint of high tech upheaval.
And, man, I can only first remember Williams in '68.
I am a tech support / developer guy who learned to program in FORTRAN in my first year in college in1966, but I also remember Billy Wiliams' rookie year, attending several Braves-Cubs and Giants-Cubs games that year (1959) although I was only 10, and I remember seeing him play some time during the period 59-62, when my grandparents were still alive and took me to games . After my Navy time (in nuc power) I've gone back to computers and keep up pretty well. So, take it easy on us old guys!
The Subject line isn't long enough ...
And Especially Grant and the Klat crew -
Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and the New Year brings us all a fun, winning season that fills Safeco and makes a profit for ROOT, so we don't get left behind when the chance comes to renegotiate the cable package, and when the chance of a new owner comes along (is Jeff Bezos a baseball fan? does he know Mark Cuban?).
Seems to be a bit of Ethier rumor floating about. I like him. But I hope we don't swap a few of the young bunch for him.
If we were going to spend the cash his contract demands, that's fine. But not when you factor in the cost of lost youth.
Uh uh...
moe
Hey, moe --
ya gotta love it when the Mariners get a guy that Baseball Reference compares to George Crowe, Luke Easter, and Walt Dropo!
I too enjoy the measured tone of the comments section and of course the content. Thanks to all for making this a pleasant site to visit.
Jeff Sullivan has an article over at Baseball Reference basically saying that Rick Porcello is the odd man out of the Tiger's rotation. Seems like he might be a fit: extreme groundballer, fairly young with a decent MLB track record. Any thoughts ?
I have no idea who the Roosevelts are that you're talking about in the other post. I don't know what you mean when you refer to the MC/DOV/SSI community. SSI is Seattle Sports Insider. Okay, got it. Not sure about the rest.
There's been other stuff like this. Makes it hard to read.
- MC = Mariner Central
- DOV - Dectect-o-vision
MC still exists and it's where many of the posters on SSI came from (previously known as Sportspot and something else before that). Occasional references to spoints come from this era. DOV is a specialist site that Dr D/Jemanji used to maintain prior to SSI. Same kind of content, slightly different format.
The key here is a user community that has spent the best part of 10 years or so debating the Mariners so there's a lot of familiarity and dare I say it, familiality to this community.
Humbled to be part of it!
Hope this helps?
Doc will chime in I'm sure, but MC is MarinerCentral, a really good, longstanding forum (i.e., not a blog) with some of the same characteristics of this site. Run by Lonnie Mathis, who posts here some as well. http://www.marinercentral.com/forum/index.php?showforum=3
DOV as an acronym for Detect-O-Vision, the precursor to SSI run by Jeff Clarke aka jemanji here. Same thing as here, but an earlier iteration, and no longer active.
MC/DOV/SSI is simply shorthand for a community of people who dare to be civil and bring outstanding knowledge and wit to all things Mariner.
The Roosevelts, if I understand the metaphor correctly, refers to high-powered, well-connected businessmen and power brokers from New York and hails back to one of the richest, most powerful families in this country who built a financial and political empire whose roots go back to colonial times and blossomed in the first half of the 20th century with two U.S. Presidents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roosevelt_family . I take it Jeff is trying to clue us in on the quality and competence of the people who are trying to shape the future of Klat.
All this is part of what Doc calls his "schtick," meaning his flair for the entertaining presentation of his content. IMO what makes Doc unique is the combination of superb knowledge and insight with the entertainment of metaphors and historical-cultural allusions.
Admittedly it is not always easy to decipher, but that's part of the fun of it for most. One cool thing is that no one here will look down on you if you don't understand something. Just ask for clarification, and someone will explain it.
Respect is the distinguishing characteristic of this particular community.
Respect for those with less knowledge.
Respect for those with more knowledge.
Respect for those with differing opinions.
And finally, respect for the complexity of the game - knowing that no matter how much we know, we would be foolish to think there isn't a whole lot more to learn.
It's that final sub-characteristic (If there is a such term) that makes this community the premier one among all the baseball blogs/boards etc. that I've ever been involved with. You and your opinions are always welcome. Rudeness, thankfully, is not, but when it show up, it is consistently gracefully dealt with.
It's the community here that makes it the site it is. Well....that and a gifted writer who can "turn a phrase" as well or better than any paid journalist out there.
They send me down many a joyus wiki path :)
Jeff Sullivan and the commenters at LL do this quite often as well. But in a very different way. Dr. D helps me explore things I am a little young / not experienced enough to know about, LL helps me discover things that I am too old to have experienced :)
What a great online community the M's have!!!
I would say I am just as much, if not more a M's fan because of SSI, MC, LL, etc. as I am a M's fan because of... well... you know... the Mariners :)
The last 10 days have been... interesting, but for what it's worth this morning things seem MUCH more stable and fast.
Really the last week or so is the only one I remember being troublesome, so 1 week in fours years ain't too bad a record ;)
I love that the platform is innovating and changing and blossoming as the community grows with it. So of course there will be growing pains. I also find it great that every added feature or change is subtle and well thought out, and always with the consumers interests in mind. Unlike, for instance, sbnation, which does large sweeping changes that seem to actually make the users experience worse. Seems like they do things just to see if they can do them, like engineering challenges or something. Since 3.0 came into being I actually go there WAY less than I used too... oh well.
One innovation I would like to see here though is a way to recommend, or thumbs up, or... spoint (MarinerCenteral reference :) ) a comment. Many times I want to express that I agree with a comment, but I have nothing to add in way of content, so I am either left to say nothing, or add a useless comment saying, ditto. Or I am late to a thread and don;'t want to read all 50 comments and just want to scan for the 5 best :)
Anyways, Great job Doc, Spec, G, and all the rest of the community. Great job Grant and Klat, and Merry Christmas to all!!!
I've looked into the matter, and The Roosevelts is a photography/art blog that Doc and some Klat gurus met with to obtain ideas about the future of blogging. So, its a real group and not shtick, and has nothing to do with the actual Roosevelts. It's pretty entertaining when readers come expecting nonsense and allegories and parables, and then get the same in high doses, and then literal statements of fact leak into the sight and cause great confusion amongst the readership.
And I like this site. The schtick is a bit hard to follow, but whatever. I like that the dialogue isn't as confrontational as it is on some other blogs. Seattle Times is the worst. Prospect Insider is mostly civil but has its "personalities," one in particular. Lookout Landing is pretty good. USSM is good but can be a bit inclusive. I have all sorts of respect for Dave Cameron, but I like to hear other opinions as well.